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Memoir Musings, Issue #102--May issue--Celebrate Memorial Day and the End of School May 15, 2008 |
Welcome to Memoir MusingsWelcome to Memoir Musings, your newsletter from Extraordinary Lives. Our goal is to inform and inspire you to save your family stories in books, videos, memory books and other forms of memoir. If you enjoy the newsletter, please forward it to friends and family who might enjoy it too. Enjoy your life story journey. Honoring Our Veterans![]() The Library of Congress launched the Veterans History Project in 2000 to record, preserve and make public the stories of soldiers and civilians supporting war efforts. Trained volunteers from around the country are conducting interviews of veterans and collecting original wartime memoirs, letters, original photos, movies, maps and scrapbooks. (They will only accept originals of these items - no copies.) The interviews and documents are cataloged and housed by the Library of Congress American Folklife Center. Please take a look at http://www.loc.gov/vets/. The site includes stories from WWI through the current conflict in Iraq. You can read, listen to and watch stories of war through the words and eyes of people who served and those who remained home, contributing in factories, hospitals and homes. The project puts a human face on war and conveys as no history textbook can, both heroism and horror. If your family has living Veterans, please consider saving their stories for this endeavor. The web site has a Field Kit to enable Veterans to submit their own stories, or you can check the list of Partners on the web site to find volunteers to help. I am a volunteer and would be honored to interview your Veteran and submit his/her stories to the Project. The project’s web site is an extraordinary reminder of the power of stories to honor, educate and inspire. I hope you visit it. Have a safe and blessed Memorial Day. Family Corner - School Year Memories![]() Memory books are a great storehouse for school stories and memorabilia. See this month’s How-To Column for basic memory book instructions. A suggested list of things to tuck in your child’s school memory book includes:
To capture some of the easy-to-forget details, you can use a “survey” to capture a consistent set of memories from year to year. A free downloadable form is posted on our web site (see link below). Compiling the year’s pages is a great summer activity for the family. Enjoy! What's New at ExtraordinaryLives.com?![]() A downloadable School Memories form is available under Step 1 on that page.
Monthly Memory Prompt - Wartime Memories![]()
In terms of soldiers who served from home or civilians working in support of war efforts, here are some topics to explore:
How-To-Tip: Memory Book Basics![]()
Here are four simple steps to get started. First, select supplies to preserve your memories; that is, materials that are safe for photos and made to last. Pages and cardstock should be acid-free, lignin-free and preferably buffered. Adhesive must be acid-free and pass the Photograph Activity Test (PAT). Pens should be light-fast, water-resistant and acid-free. Second, organize your materials, either by theme (i.e., school memories) or chronology. Third, select, arrange, mat if desired, and adhere the photos and memorabilia to your pages according to your organization scheme. Fourth (and most-ignored), write the stories underlying the photos and memorabilia and include on the pages. Everything else is, as they say, gravy. Memory Book Starter Kit Sale![]() Thank you for subscribing to Memoir Musings. Please email or call 513.385.1637 with any questions or suggestions.
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